An experienced Olympic fencing coach and master of creating intense and exciting onscreen sword fights on film and TV, working primarily with his friend and fellow stuntman in Peter Diamond, Bob Anderson may have been a mature veteran by the time he was portraying Darth Vader within a difficult and cumbersome costume on the Carbon Freeze Chamber set, but his agility and prowess against his combatant in the exuberant and professional Mark Hamill proved spectacular onscreen.
 |
| Two posed images of Bob Anderson as Vader that originally appeared on the official Star Wars website. |
In addition to wearing heels in order to match the height of Dave Prowse in the role, for Empire, Anderson's Vader suit and mask were specially recreated in ways that would give him as much flexibility and sight as possible during the filming.
 |
| A look at the Vader stunt masks/costume pieces. |
Recalls Anderson of wearing the costume to STARLOG magazine in 2000: “It (the costume) was very restrictive. I lost a lot of weight. The week they shot that freezing chamber in Empire, when Han Solo gets frozen in the block, on that fight - which they did in one week- I lost fifteen pounds. And the main reason was that they had to keep the studio temperature high to keep the steam in. So, we were working in about 80 degrees all the time! I had all this armor on, two cloaks and a helmet. I did more inside that suit than anybody else. It took up a lot of my life, actually. It took two films- about eight months on the first (Empire) and six months on the second (Jedi). It was a great experience. I’ve always been spacey anyway. It was a joy for me to get in a spacey costume and fight with a sword.”
 |
| Image: Kurtz/Joiner Archive. |
No comments:
Post a Comment